--- name: "George Nolfi" canonical: "https://film.one/person/george-nolfi" fi1m_id: "george-nolfi" imdb_id: "nm1079776" tmdb_id: 1921 wikidata_id: "Q525164" roles: ["Writer","Director"] born: "10 June 1968" reviewed_on_fi1m: 3 average_fi1m_score: 72 average_as: "writer" average_over: 2 updated: "2026-09-19T10:13:30.409608+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # George Nolfi ## Identity George Nolfi - **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/george-nolfi - **Type:** Person - **Fi1m ID:** george-nolfi - **IMDb ID:** nm1079776 - **TMDB ID:** 1921 - **Wikidata ID:** Q525164 - **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Nolfi, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q525164, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1079776/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1921 Writer and director. Born 10 June 1968 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. ## Details - **Work:** Writer, Director - **Born:** 10 June 1968, Boston, Massachusetts, USA - **Active:** 2004–2011 - **Titles on Fi1m:** 3: 1 directing, 2 writing - **Frequently works with:** [Matt Damon](https://film.one/person/matt-damon.md) - **Average Fi1m score:** 72, as writer, over 2 titles - **Fi1m score by decade:** 2000s 72 (2), 2010s 64 (1) - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Nolfi, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q525164, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1079776/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/1921 ## Streaming the US now - **Apple TV:** [*The Bourne Ultimatum*](https://film.one/film/the-bourne-ultimatum.md) (85) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on George Nolfi > George Nolfi writes big premises kindly: men in hats who nudge the world, a heist across Europe, a spy who wants to know who made him. His scripts work best when someone else is cutting them, and his directing debut best when it stops explaining. A coffee is spilt and a life changes course. In *The Adjustment Bureau* (2011) the world runs to a Plan, and a workforce of men in hats keeps humanity on it with small corrections, a missed bus here, a stumble there. Philip K. Dick wrote that idea to frighten us. George Nolfi, writing and directing it, uses it to keep Matt Damon and Emily Blunt apart for 106 minutes, and the film is at its best when it is about the two of them. That is Nolfi in one picture: a large idea handled gently, by a writer who would rather the people in it were happy than that the idea was followed all the way home. He came to scripts from seminar rooms, Princeton and then Oxford and a doctorate in political science he never finished, and it shows in what he picks. Fate, free will, who decides. His first produced credit was *Timeline* (2003), from the Michael Crichton novel; then *Ocean's Twelve* (2004), grown from his own spec script; then an uncredited rewrite on *The Bourne Supremacy* (2004) and a shared screenplay on *The Bourne Ultimatum* (2007), before *The Adjustment Bureau* made him a director. He has since directed *The Banker* (2020) and *Elevation* (2024), which we have not reviewed. Matt Damon is in three of his films. The best thing with his name on it is the one he had least control over. *The Bourne Ultimatum* is one long pursuit through Moscow, London, Madrid, Tangier and New York, the answers handed out in brief flashes between the running, and it is the best of the three Bourne films. Nolfi wrote it with Tony Gilroy and Scott Z. Burns for Paul Greengrass, who does not let anyone stand still long enough to make a speech. At Waterloo Station we stopped breathing for a stretch, and it was the camera and Damon doing it, with the script kept out of the way. That is the right size for Nolfi's writing. Give him room and he fills it. *Ocean's Twelve* is Steven Soderbergh's film about the company rather than the job, and Nolfi's script puts the job somewhere we cannot see it. *The Adjustment Bureau* is weakest whenever it stops to tell us how the machinery works, and every time it does, the romance goes cold. He says he starts from character, always, and we believe him. The trouble is what happens next: he explains the character's world to us as though we had not been watching it. Damon and Blunt are easy company and we wanted them left alone; the hats kept coming in with diagrams. Nolfi makes strange premises hospitable, which is rarer than it sounds, and what he needs is a director as unsentimental as Greengrass or an editor with a hard heart. Until he finds one for his own films, watch them at home, where the speeches feel shorter. ## Biography George Nolfi is an American screenwriter, director and producer. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, he graduated summa cum laude from Princeton University with a degree in public policy and studied at Oxford University on a Marshall Scholarship before entering the PhD programme in political science at UCLA. While at UCLA he sold his first spec script in 1997 and left to pursue screenwriting. His first screen credit was for the 2003 film *Timeline*. He wrote *Ocean's Twelve* (2004), co-wrote *The Bourne Ultimatum* (2007) and made his directorial debut with *The Adjustment Bureau* (2011), which he also wrote. Later directing credits include *The Banker* (2020) and *Elevation* (2024). He created the 2015 television series *Allegiance*. *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (3) ### Directed (1) - *The Adjustment Bureau* (2011), Fi1m 64, Screenplay, Director, Producer — [page](https://film.one/film/the-adjustment-bureau.md) ### Wrote (2) — the average rests on these - *The Bourne Ultimatum* (2007), Fi1m 85, Screenplay — [page](https://film.one/film/the-bourne-ultimatum.md) - *Ocean's Twelve* (2004), Fi1m 58, Writer — [page](https://film.one/film/oceans-twelve.md) ## Complete filmography (13) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Elevation* (2024), Director, Producer - *The Banker* (2020), Director, Producer, Screenplay - *Birth of the Dragon* (2017), Director, Executive Producer - *Spectral* (2016), Writer - *Allegiance* (2015), series, Executive Producer, Creator - *The Last Stand* (2013), Writer - *The Adjustment Bureau* (2011), Screenplay, Director, Producer — Fi1m 64, [page](https://film.one/film/the-adjustment-bureau.md) - *The Bourne Ultimatum* (2007), Screenplay — Fi1m 85, [page](https://film.one/film/the-bourne-ultimatum.md) - *The Sentinel* (2006), Screenplay, Co-Producer - *Ocean's Twelve* (2004), Writer — Fi1m 58, [page](https://film.one/film/oceans-twelve.md) - *Timeline* (2003), Screenplay - *Untitled Star Wars "New Jedi Order" Film*, Writer - *Taika Waiti Flash Gordon Movie*, Producer --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/george-nolfi